The widespread interest evidenced by both government and industry today in developing an economical solar energy collection system for residential heating is well known. Substantial effort is being expended to develop such a system, including systems for hot water heating. The two main items of expense wherein improvements are necessary are in the initial manufacturing cost of the solar collector system and the installation cost.
Solar energy for supplemental hot water heating and home heating awaits the development of a reliable, reasonably efficient, inexpensive solar collector. Present commercial units cost $10-15/ft.sup.2 for the collector and about $20/ft.sup.2 for the total installed cost, including plumbing, storage, heat exchange, and the control system. A typical home requires about 50-75 square feet for hot water heating, or $1000-1500 installed cost and one-third the heated floor space for forty percent supplemental space heating, e.g., 1/3.times.1500 ft.sup.2 home=500.times.20=$10,000.
Obviously, few home owners are willing to invest this amount of money for a 10-15 year payback in fuel savings in view of the uncertainties of the energy situation, alternate approaches to reducing home heating costs such as insulation, and reports of the unreliability and lower than expected thermal efficiencies of some commercial solar units.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of this invention to provide a solar energy collector which can be manufactured from inexpensive materials by relatively inexpensive mass production techniques, and which can be readily installed by the home owner.
It is another object of this invention to provide a solar energy collector comprised of solar energy collector cover and heat absorber which can be readily assembled by the home owner simply by bowing the flexible collector cover for insertion between retainer elements attached to the heat absorber to persent a convex curved surface of the collector cover exposed to the sunlight, provide a weather tight seal between collector cover and heat absorber, and provide a means for adjusting the area of the insulating air space between collector cover and heat absorber.